Sound has long been reproduced for listeners using speakers and/or headphones. One method for providing sound to a listener is by binaurally rendering an acoustic scene. Binaural rendering allows for the creation of a three-dimensional stereo sound sensation of the listener actually being in the room with the original sound source.
Rendering binaural scenes is typically done by convolving the left and right ear head-related impulse responses (HRIRs) for a specific spatial direction with a source sound in that direction. For each sound source, a separate convolution operation is needed for both the left ear and the right ear. The output of all of the filtered sources is summed and presented to each ear, resulting in a system where the number of convolution operations grows linearly with the number of sound sources. Furthermore, the HRIR is conventionally measured on a spherical grid of points, so when the direction of the synthesized source is in-between these points a complicated interpolation is necessary.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to be able to provide rendering of binaural scenes using fewer convolution operations and without the complicated interpolation necessary for points in between the points on the spherical grid. It would also be advantageous to take into account a user's head rotation in reference to the simulated acoustic scene.